Three years on, India’s cheetah reintroduction struggles with poor science, delays, and missed grassland goals. In September 2022, the arrival of eight cheetahs from Namibia to Kuno National Park was hailed as a conservation milestone. Five months later in February 2024, 12 more spotted cats arrived from South Africa. The initiative, branded Project Cheetah, carried lofty ambitions. It aimed not just to restore the world’s fastest land animal to India’s landscapes, but to revive open natural ecosystems (ONEs) — the grasslands, scrublands, and savannahs that are among the country’s most neglected habitats. By reintroducing a top predator, policymakers hoped to spark wider conservation attention, diversify India’s wildlife portfolio beyond tigers and forests, and make ecological amends for a human-caused extinction. The Cheetah Action Plan set out a clear roadmap: import 5–10 cheetahs annually for a decade, create a metapopulation across multiple states, secure and restore grassland hab...
As the two states of Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh signed the controvertial Ken-Betwa linking project (KBLP), considered as an environmental catastrophe, the cost of the trees proposed to be cut is anybody's guess, especially after an expert committee report submitted in the Supreme Court recently. Besides, the best of tiger country will also be submerged and disconnected from the Panna national park which is all set to bear the brunt. All the good work of the tiger reintroduction programme in the tiger reserve is going to be flowed down in the project water. The number of tigers in Panna varies somewhere around 65-70 which includes 20 cubs.
Priceless Ecology to
be Submerged
A five member committee of experts for the first time set a guideline on the valuation of trees and submitted a report in the Supreme Court in a case related to West Bengal where 356 trees were required to be felled. A tree’s monetary worth is its age multiplied by Rs 74,500. The committee added that a heritage tree with a lifespan of well over 100 years could be valued at more than Rs 1 crore -- and that the monetary value of a project, for which hundreds of trees are cut, is sometimes far less than the economic and environmental worth of the felled trees. The total counting of trees in the proposed submergence area of KBLP has not been done but a sample survey by the state forest department has estimated that about 2 lakh trees above 20 cm girth at breast height would submerge in the national park area and this number may go up to about 12 lakh stems when young poles and established sapling are accounted. “Equally high number of trees will be cut or lost in the forest areas outside the national park. Thus, considerable quantification of carbon stored as biomass would be released once the dam is constructed, in addition to loss of vegetation diversity. Now, one can imagine value of the trees”, a government report said.
In the West Bengal case, the committee recommended ,in case trees must be removed, the first endeavour should be to relocate them, making use of modern technology, and if there is no other option but to cut them; it also added that planting five saplings in lieu of one tree was not good enough since a 100-year-old tree cannot be equated with a few fresh saplings. It recommended that for a tree with small crown size, 10 saplings should be planted; 25 saplings for a tree with medium crown size; and 50 saplings for a tree with large crown size. Crown is part of the tree from which branches grow above the trunk. Can this be done in the environmental disaster that is all set to unfold in Panna ?
Cliffs and Gorges, all go Under Water
The project involves construction of a large dam at Daudhan
village and a 2 km tunnel right inside the core area of Panna tiger reserve situated in the semi-arid
region of the Vindhyan mountain range spread over the Panna and Chhatarpur
districts in the northern part of Madhya Pradesh. The terrain here consists of
extensive plateaus, rocky cliffs, gorges, caves and rock crevices creating
critical habitats for breeding and resting of the key species such as tiger,
leopard, hyena, sloth bear and several species of vultures.
Project or the Park ? Shivraj goes for the KBL
"BREATHLESS- Hunted and Hounded,the Tiger Runs for its life", a book on tiger crisis released last year, dedicated one full chapter “ The Drowning Panna and Dams of Doom” on the KBLP. The book said, “ Daudhan is the first dam which is all set to submerge the green- laboratory where the world's first ever successful experiment of tiger reintroduction plan was experimented and executed. The imminent submergence includes almost 90 sq km area of the Panna National park .This also includes the best of tiger habitat inside the park. Since independent studies have shown that the cost benefit ratio is next to par, given what will be lost, it is hard to see arguments in its favour.”
Also read: From Unknown Tigress of Kanha to Mother of Panna: The Untold Story of T2
Referring to the haste shown by the Chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan while presiding over a meeting of the State Wildlife Board, the book said , “ Regardless of stiff opposition from some non official members, the state wildlife board meeting in Bhopal in 2015 , the chief minister Shivraj Singh pushed the project. Amidst statements from one of the board ,"The nation will have to decide whether to have the project or the park, we cannot have both”, the CM opted for the project”.
In unequivocal terms, some board members opposing the project said, “ the project will mean the end of Panna”. The book also says that ,” At a time of global warming, successive governments are still pushing the environmentally unviable projects like KBLP, a scheme that is certain to spell death –knell for the Panna tiger reserve.``
By : Deshdeep Saxena
Banner Image: File photo of a tigress with cub
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